NARRATOR: What happens when a man juggles a chain saw?
Make that three chain saws.
When you put butane lighters in a blender?
-LIEBERMAN: Yes! -DIXON: Totally awesome.
NARRATOR: And when you break a beer bottle
with your bare hands?
If you want to know, you've got to get warped.
Uh-oh.
[Laughter]
NARRATOR: Take two guys whose slow-mo cameras
can stop the world in its tracks...
I'm gonna run down there and catch all the action.
-Good luck. -All right.
Matt, you ready?
All right, Greg, I reset this camera.
We're gonna take a look at your takeoff this time.
NARRATOR: ...add a high-tech laboratory,
where anything can and will happen...
Oh, boy.
NARRATOR: ...and some of the world's wildest talents.
What happens?
This is awesome. We have to get this guy in here.
Will it blend?
NARRATOR: Maybe you've seen the YouTube videos.
A guy puts stuff in a blender
that should not be put in a blender.
We got your glow sticks.
Light bulbs.
Video camera.
Baseball.
A new way of putting together a Rubik's Cube.
And who could forget this brand-new iPhone?
Tom DIXON: is a marketing genius.
He sells his industrial-strength blenders
by filming them as they grind up the known world.
But how does a blender really blend?
What goes on inside the blades?
To show us, we asked Tom to start with the easy stuff.
DIXON: Let's blend a couple of strawberries.
LIEBERMAN: Sounds good to me.
[Whirring]
Well, that smells and looks pretty good.
-You get all that? -KEARNEY: You got it.
DIXON: Now, this is not gonna end well for the strawberry.
NARRATOR: Our cameras capture the strawberry's demise
at 10,000 frames per second.
DIXON: [Laughs]
Oh, look how many slices!
That's four, five, six.
LIEBERMAN: That's great.
And there's the other one.
DIXON: Oh, this is fun.
[Laughs]
NARRATOR: We know you've always asked yourself
one burning question.
Why, no matter what speed you run a blender,
does some stuff just refuse to go down and get ground?
DIXON: The problem is they run the blade too fast.
Everything bounces off,
or it doesn't pull the product down into the blade.
So, what happens if we try something at a lower speed?
Let's try low speed.
[Rattling]
[Whistles] Gum-ball smoke.
Eat this. Matt, you ready?
Whoo.
LIEBERMAN: Let's see about what theory looks like in reality.
DIXON: Ohh!
LIEBERMAN: And so how fast is this clip?
This is 10,000 frames per second right there.
DIXON: [Laughs]
Boomp.
NARRATOR: When the blender runs at maximum speed,
the blade bounces the gum balls upward
rather than letting them fall into the cutting path.
Easy to see at 10,000 frames per second.
If we take a good look at the slower one, the slower speed.
KEARNEY: Slower blade speed.
LIEBERMAN: So, now we can really see a comparison.
Wow, first hit.
DIXON: [Laughs]
That was perfect. A little bit different.
That's why we have program cycles.
It lets everything drop down in front of the blade.
NARRATOR: It's not only the variable speed,
but the single-blade design
that enhances blending performance.
Oh, that's amazing. [Laughs]
Oh, wait till our engineers see this.
NARRATOR: This blade can spin at 28,000 revolutions per minute,
meaning almost anything is at our mercy.
Okay, pop quiz.
This is what's left of what we just blended.
Any guesses?
Actually, that's not too surprising.
NARRATOR: Time's up.
Let's reverse the shot to find out.
You know, it's really a little uncomfortable
being put inside a blender.
All right. "Soup."
[Whirring]
NARRATOR: We've seen Tom's blender pulverize this camera,
crack gum balls, and slice strawberries,
but can it blend up a Molotov cocktail?
-Now, you've done this before? -Oh, no.
LIEBERMAN: Just to recap, we're gonna take seven containers
of highly pressurized, flammable gas,
and we're gonna blend them and hope that it explodes.
-That's right. -Now, why are we gonna do this?
It's never been done before. We're the first.
I'm convinced. It's a great reason.
NARRATOR: But there's a bigger question here.
Will the blender container survive?
And, yes, this experiment defines the phrase
"Don't try this at home."
I'm all set.
NARRATOR: And we do mean you.
Three, two, one.
[Rattling]
Yes!
All right, let's take a look.
DIXON: Can't wait.
NARRATOR: Lift-off!
Wow, so, it comes right out of the bottom.
Oh, man!
This is totally awesome.
NARRATOR: Our slow-motion footage reveals
that the fire starts underneath
as the escaping fuel hits hot metal in the motor.
There was a ton of butane spurting out the top,
and it really takes that flame way up.
DIXON: Wow.
LIEBERMAN: Let's just see the beginning of the flame again.
KEARNEY: Sure.
LIEBERMAN: I'm glad we moved back
because that's going 3 feet off the table's side.
NARRATOR: Seven exploding lighters
would bust most blenders apart.
But this one is made
of the same material used for bulletproof glass.
LIEBERMAN: In the background, the blender's still blending.
DIXON: It's still blending away.
Look. Oh, man!
NARRATOR: Juggling has been around since ancient Egypt,
and over the past 4,000 years,
nearly anything that can be held in the hand
can be tossed in the air.
Just ask "Mad" Chad Taylor.
The guy famous for juggling buzzing chain saws.
[Buzzing]
How does he do it without losing life or, best case, limb?
And more importantly, for those of us playing at home,
how can we do it?
Oh, I had that.
Yeah, yeah.
NARRATOR: Let's start with the basics.
This is called the cascade, which is generally thought of
as the most basic juggling pattern.
LIEBERMAN: All right. What's a little step above that?
Okay, what would be a little more difficult,
this is called the shower.
That looks quite a bit more difficult.
Well, it is roughly twice as fast
because only one hand is throwing them up high.
NARRATOR: Looks hard, right?
When we warp it down, hey, it looks easy.
After a few strategic beers, anyone could do this.
And we captured this at 500 frames a second?
Yep.
All right, so about 20 times slower than normal.
-Wow, that's pretty cool. -Makes it look easy.
NARRATOR: Right off the bat,
we noticed something interesting.
LIEBERMAN: Your gaze never changes
over the entire sequence.
TAYLOR: And that's good.
I mean, the idea is you're trying to keep looking
at that same imaginary point in space
and seeing everything else with your peripheral vision.
LIEBERMAN: You're never looking down at your hands.
TAYLOR: You never have to look at your hands.
Once you've seen the highest point,
you know where it's gonna land.
NARRATOR: Let's take this step by step.
Ball leaves hand.
Hand catches ball.
Repeat, rinse.
Again, watch Chad's eyes.
Looks easy this slow.
But at normal speed,
time for another beer and another juggling pattern.
Let's compare this to the shower juggle.
Okay.
TAYLOR: That's the classic way to juggle.
Now, in the cascade,
usually there's only one ball in the air at a time,
sometimes two.
When you get into the shower,
there's actually moments when all three are in the air.
NARRATOR: Gravity dictates
the more objects Chad has in the air,
the higher he has to throw them.
-I'll do my three. -Okay.
NARRATOR: I'd keep your eyes on the guy on the right.
-All right, hit it. -Here we go.
NARRATOR: In this case, with seven balls
thrown roughly 10 feet above his hands,
there's a lot more room for error.
To get it right, Chad has to keep up to six balls
in the air at any given time.
Not an easy thing to do.
TAYLOR: Oh, I can just see all my mistakes,
how sloppy that is.
They should be the same height there. They're not.
LIEBERMAN: There's a couple moments
where you can actually see some of the balls on top
hit each other really, really lightly.
TAYLOR: Okay, I didn't even catch that.
I'm just surprised that that is so much lower.
Wow.
NARRATOR: Okay, Chad is making this look too easy.
Let's up the ante and give him more to play with.
TAYLOR: Each one is gonna go up in a double spin.
NARRATOR: Balls can be caught any old way,
but when you're juggling oblong items like bats,
you have to spin them precisely to grab the handle.
At warp speed, this becomes a beautiful ballet.
[Classical music plays]
You must not be able to see anything below your neck,
so you really have to judge this way in advance.
TAYLOR: I have to be looking right up there
where they're peaking to make it work, for sure.
NARRATOR: Okay, Chad's got the three-ball thing down.
He's even got seven balls going.
And he's got the bats happening.
But why does he not quit when he's ahead?
What would possess a man to juggle chain saws?
Well, like so many foolhardy decisions,
it all started with a paycheck.
It was actually for a beer commercial,
and I had two weeks to learn it.
And the thing is, then I got there to shoot it,
and I'm firing them up,
and the director's like, "You don't have to start them."
He says, "We'll just put a sound effect over it later."
NARRATOR: Well, "Time Warp" doesn't do sound effects.
TAYLOR: Here we go, guys.
[Buzzing]
NARRATOR: These teeth are spinning at 11,500 rpm.
Replace ice chips for human flesh,
and you understand why we looked at the fine print
of the "Time Warp" insurance policy.
The good news is the only thing our plan does cover
is accidental dismemberment from on-set chain-saw juggling,
so we're good to go.
Chad Taylor is a world-class juggler.
When he gets warped in front of our cameras,
it makes the ordinary extraordinary.
And transforms the truly difficult
into poetry in motion.
Now it's time to turn our cameras
on something completely insane
as Chad prepares to juggle three running chain saws.
Okay, well, this is why we're actually really here.
Okay. If you guys are ready.
I'll give you a little towel, just in case.
Ignore him. Keep focused.
We're gonna just stay out of the way and let this happen.
[Buzzing]
NARRATOR: This is the part where we say,
"Don't try this at home."
Research suggests that people who learn to juggle
have a 3% increase in gray matter.
Their brains actually grow.
If so, assuming we ignore
Chad's decision to juggle chain saws,
he must be a genius.
Whether lightweight bats or 10-pound chain saws,
Chad's technique doesn't vary.
Only the danger does.
LIEBERMAN: It seems like right when the one's in your left hand
coming down, it really, really puts an impact on your wrist.
Yeah. I can't believe that, how well you can see that there.
Wow. I mean, I always knew they were heavy.
But it's really wild to see that.
NARRATOR: Somehow this looks even more dangerous
at 2,000 frames per second.
If the spin isn't correct, Chad will miss the handle.
But these aren't harmless bats.
These have sharp, moving teeth.
See them move?
Even here, Chad is still not looking at his hands.
By the time Chad ends his performance,
27 running chain saws
have passed within inches of his nose.
Let's watch that again.
Now, thanks to this warped footage,
the secret of juggling is revealed.
Notice Chad is looking straight ahead,
never looking at his hands.
He is in a zone of total concentration,
total awareness, with his peripheral vision fully engaged,
with all of his senses keeping,
well, all of his balls in the air at the same time.
We talked about the increase in gray matter
earlier from jugglers.
I don't know how I feel about doing this
in terms of how smart it was in the beginning,
but now that you got it working, I think it's a great idea.
Yeah, well, the chain-saw juggling
may actually decrease gray matter.
I'm not sure yet.
It can decrease everything if it cuts the wrong place.
NARRATOR: So, what have we learned?
Three balls, easy.
More balls, getting harder.
Those pins, getting lost.
Chain saw, we'd like another beer.
We've seen that there's a science to everything.
This is awesome. We have to get this guy in here.
NARRATOR: From blending gum balls.
To juggling a chain saw.
And not too unexpectedly,
there's also a science to this simple barroom trick.
Check this out.
LIEBERMAN: Holy moly!
-I want to try. -All right.
What do I have to keep in mind?
Well I would dump a little bit out, get some air in the top.
-For the homies. -Yep.
Always.
And then you want to hit it with the padded part of your hand
as level as you can, covering the entire rim.
-Right here. -Yep, that's it.
NARRATOR: And now the obligatory
"Don't try this at home" reference.
[Pop]
-I heard something. -Yeah.
You got to hit it harder than my crazy Auntie Grace.
Well, I'll try. Ready?
Yep.
-Yeah! -Nicely done. Very nice.
NARRATOR: Let's watch that again.
With this warp, we see the secret
behind a bartender's least-favorite trick.
Or do we?
So, that's the moment of impact right there.
LIEBERMAN: Oh, and it's 10 frames later that it breaks.
KEARNEY: It looks like a bunch of little bubbles forming.
Yeah, we need to look at that a lot slower
because I'm pretty sure those aren't bubbles.
KEARNEY: Okay.
LIEBERMAN: So let's zoom in and go a lot faster,
as fast as possible.
NARRATOR: And by "faster," of course, Jeff means slower.
-You're all set? -Yep.
NARRATOR: Set me up, boys.
Three, two, one.
-That was pretty easy. -That was easy.
So, that's amazing.
LIEBERMAN: It's a cavitation.
A cavitation is just like a bubble,
but it's a bubble of a vacuum.
NARRATOR: Warped at 10,000 frames per second,
we can actually see the vacuum form on the bottom.
Nature just abhors vacuums,
and when nature doesn't like something,
it usually does something dramatic.
It's the sheer force of the liquid
just rushing back to fill the vacuum,
and it just blasts out the bottom.
LIEBERMAN: The break is actually happening
because the water is separated from the bottom
and drawn back to it at a really, really, high velocity.
Amazing.
NARRATOR: Okay, we have a small confession.
What we've been showing you so far
has all been done with colored water.
Not because we don't like beer, but because this party trick
is nearly impossible with carbonated liquids.
-Let's do a beer. -A real beer.
NARRATOR: That said, let's go for the real thing.
Get out of my seat.
But sometimes I want to be in your seat.
So, as we expect, there's almost no cavitation.
There's small cavities,
and then the carbon dioxide fills it immediately,
forms a ton of fizz.
NARRATOR: So, there you have it.
Our time-warp cameras
show the vacuum filling with CO2 bubbles.
And so while the bottle breaks with colored water,
with carbonated beer, it simply overflows.
And that goes up and out
in a beer St. Helens volcanic eruption.
A waste of a perfectly good brewski,
but a waste for the noble cause of science.
Oh, and one last thing.
Do you think you could smash that with your bare hands?
Yeah.
That's Newton's third law.
NARRATOR: Something you want to see warped?
Check us out on the Discovery Channel Website,
dsc.discovery.com,
and the warp you see just might be your own.